Pratham Books Champion : Niki Savino

For International Literacy Day (8th September), we had a dream - we wished that 100 people would volunteer to conduct storytelling sessions across the country. We ended up finding more than 250 champions to conduct storytelling sessions across the country. We will be sharing the stories of all our champions through our blog.

Medozeu Haralu sent us the following story. Medozeu helped us get in touch with champions in Nagaland.

Read on about two events, one at The Maple Tree School and another at a children’s church library.

Maple Tree School  hosted two story reading sessions: one with students of UKg and the other as part of the Junior English Club.

It was Junior English Club time again at Maple Tree. Club members immediately noticed ‘Pratham Books Champion’ on the wall and they got excited! The group of 6 – 11 year olds settled down and listened attentively to ‘Susheela’s Kolams’. 

One of the girls identified the pictures as ‘rangloi’, for the others kolams were a totally new thing. They 

had never seen such designs but they liked the idea of drawing on steps and walls. For that day Ma’am 

Niki let them see Susheela’s and draw then draw their own kolams on sheets of paper.

In the other session with Ukg, the group of restless children took some time to sit down – but they were all ears as soon as story time began. Tiakaba interrupted, “Ma’am Niki, what’s a kolam?”. “Listen to the story and you’ll find out.”

Susheela’s Kolam was just long enough for them to sit still. Ma’am Niki gave them paper and crayons to draw their own kites and then decorate it with kolams. Tiakaba’s was the most colourful!

Children’s Church Library -  Baptist Revival Church .

Saturday, Niki took the same flex to the Library. Although the story reading session was unannounced, children from the surrounding area had gathered. For some of the 5 – 14 year olds, listening to a story 

read out for them was a treat! All could understand the simple language and even 5 year old Khriemeu 

stopped wiggling long enough to listen. They liked the pictures too.

At the library, the focus was more on getting the children interested to read and to understand what 

they’ve read.

Thank you Niki, Medozeu and Sashi Imchen for spreading the joy of reading!

View more pictures from the International Literacy Day Celebrations.

This blog contains stories sent in by all our champions. Browse through the blog for more stories. You can also go through the tags on the right side of the blog to find stories happening in your own city.

Note : If any of you want to be a Pratham Books Champion and join us on our journey of getting 'a book in every child's hand', write to us at web(at)prathambooks(dot)org.